by Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

by Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES - Anyone expecting nostalgia and flab at a Rolling Stones concert will have to search in the audience. On stage, the legendary band is lean, hungry and unsentimental, rocking with more swagger than a bullfighter and more brute force than the bull.

Friday's launch of the 50 and Counting tour at Staples Center served as a persuasive reminder of the band's undimmed powers, its admirable commitment to roots, the enduring appeal of its music, the magic of its chemistry and the reason it still holds claim to the title "world's greatest rock 'n' roll band."

"The only reason we're here is to make the Lakers look younger," Mick Jagger joked midway through an athletic marathon that would humble Kobe Bryant.

The show, with its enormous tongue-logo stage and backdrop of inventive videos, triumphs as art, entertainment and a social blowout, even at $26 a song for the top-tier tickets.

Media have seized on those costly ducats, ranging from $85 to $600 (the season's priciest) and the fact that some high-end seats were slow to sell. As diehards and detractors debate whether the steep admission is justified, fans are packing the house.

Undecided over plucking down big bucks? Here are 10 reasons the Stones are worth tabling a few household bills.

The catalog.Wild Horses, Satisfaction, Tumbling Dice, Honky Tonk Women. The Stones start it up with 1965's Get Off of My Cloud, then barrel through timeless anthems that sound as vital and threatening as they did decades ago when they first thrilled teens and rattled parents. Performed with purpose and energy, Midnight Rambler and Jumpin' Jack Flash explode with renewed intensity.

History's greatest rock singer. Mick Jagger howls, yelps, croons and belts like no one else, stamping tunes with country twang, sexual heat or sheer menace. After wringing dark drama from Paint It Black, he unleashed a piercing falsetto for the stage debut of Emotional Rescue. After half a century, he remains untouchable.

Only Jagger moves like Jagger. With Olympian stamina and the limber, lean body of a teen gymnast, Jagger and his quicksilver hips are in constant motion as he cops his signature choreography from boxers, ballerinas, traffic cops, cheerleaders, runway models, aerobicizers and barnyard animals.

The coolest rock star ever. Keith Richards, a rock outlaw of vampiric imperishability. A mad tangle of gray hair, a wicked grin, a 50-year history of booze and drugs, a religious devotion to music.

Keef's guitar. Those primordial riffs on Satisfaction, The Last Time, Brown Sugar are the sublime cornerstones of the Stone age. And with the body language of a drowsy leopard, he plays them as if he's by turns channeling Robert Johnson, Jimmy Reed and Lucifer.

More more more guitar.Mick Taylor, a Stones guitarist from 1969 to 1974, is back for the anniversary tour, contributing a sterling solo on Midnight Rambler and ample fuel for a jamming threesome with Richards and Ron Wood that pulls the band back to the garage.

Charlie Watts. A jazz-stoked metronome, the drummer (who turns 72 in June) has been the Stones' secret weapon from the start, as consistent pounding out the rock thunder of Jumpin' Jack Flash as he is conjuring the disco rhythms for Miss You.

The Beatles broke up. Paul McCartney's shows are fantastic but those Beatles tunes are missing something, namely John Lennon. Half a Who remains. Led Zeppelin? Never gonna happen. Call them dinosaurs if you must, but the Stones are the last giants of rock's renaissance.

Gimme Shelter. Steeped in sex, paranoia, dread and ambiguity, Let It Bleed's peak track encapsulates the late '60s and remains the best song of the rock era. Live, it's transcendent.

This could be the last time. Yeah, every retirement prediction has been followed by another tour, and the Stones are exhibiting the command and vitality to propel them another 50 years. And yet, it has to end some day. Boomers who want a last hurrah and kids who want bragging rights may not want to risk waiting. Besides, there's nobody in the wings to replace Mick and the lads. A One Direction 50th anniversary tour in 2060? Doubtful but could happen. Maybe Keef will sit in.

The set list:

Get Off of My Cloud

The Last Time

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)

Paint It Black

Gimme Shelter

Wild Horses (with Gwen Stefani)

Factory Girl

Emotional Rescue

Respectable (with Keith Urban)

Doom and Gloom

One More Shot

Honky Tonk Women

Before They Make Me Run

Happy

Midnight Rambler

Miss You

Start Me Up

Tumbling Dice

Brown Sugar

Sympathy for the Devil

Encore:

You Can't Always Get What You Want (with the California State Long Beach choir)